VA Various Artists Africa

USA For Africa: We Are The World is a 1985 compilation album released in 1985 when "We Are The World" was a project organized by Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones featuring various pop singers of the day. It came when England put together a project in 1984 as Band Aid with "Do They Know It's Christmas" so USA For Africa was organized. This compilation album features many of the artists who were part of the project or who were supportive to donate music and time to fight famine relief. This was released by Columbia Records.

It's just over 3 years since we launched the Africa Seven label in Paris and London. Our first release back then (Airways One) is still our best seller and had to be repressed 4 times so far. Forty or so releases later it is time to take to the clouds again. Being the unimaginative bunch we are, the fourth installment of our African sky filled musical cornucopia is called African Airways Four (Disco Funk Touchdown - 1976 - 1983).

In the 1950s, a few young men, known as Badius, embarked on a nearly 2,500-mile (4000 km) journey from the northern rural interior of Cabo Verde’s Santiago Island to the island of São Tomé off the Atlantic coast of central Africa. Incredibly, they made the arduous journey not to earn a better living or send money back home — but to simply buy an accordion, locally known as a gaita. They would work years in harsh conditions to earn enough to buy the instrument and a few more years to buy a ticket back to Santiago.

When Eskimo Recordings approached Bill Brewster with the idea of putting together a compilation exploring his epic record collection, the acclaimed journalist and DJ decided to take a widescreen approach. The resultant collection is vast and predictably on-point, with each of the CDs gathering together tracks on a loose theme ("Post-Punk", "Balearic" and "House"). As you'd expect, it's a hugely impressive and eye-opening set, with Brewster serving up largely obscure or long-forgotten cuts that range in scope from trippy, dubbed-out post-punk disco, jaunty jazz-funk, synth-heavy boogie and heavily percussive Afro-disco grooves, to saucer-eyed European synth-pop, the dub techno of Maurizio, Swag's early UK tech-house and the East Midlands deep house bump of Charles Webster's "A Love From San Francisco" project. In other words, it's a cracker from start to finish.

Still untouched by human settlement barely 500 years ago, the islands of the Southwest Indian Ocean, Mauritius, Reunion Island, Rodrigues and the Seychelles were colonized by Europeans (French, English and Dutch) from the end of the 16th century on and operated as trading posts on the Indian route. Slaves were deported from Africa and Madagascar to cultivate coffee, spices and sugar cane. On the margins of the plantations, during clandestine gatherings, they exorcised their daily lives through percussion, singing and dancing. It is the tschiéga, chéga or sega, from Mozambique and Malagasy influence.

To most people who have, at some time or other in their lives, been students of geography Africa is a continent; a rather large one, no doubt, but also unfortunately still viewed through white colonial eyes and so a “dark continent”. But to the African she is not only an animate being, but Mother Africa. Many European and American musicians, despite having been suckled by her don’t always see her as the source of everything living and therefore the music they play.

"Make The Most Of Your Time On Earth: A Rough Guide to the World" is a compilation album released in 2007 by the Rough Guides series, known for its diverse and eclectic collection of world music. This album is a part of the Rough Guide's effort to bring together sounds from different cultures and regions around the globe, offering listeners a musical journey across continents.

Analog Africa proudly present - Pop Makossa - The Invasive Dance Beat of Cameroon 1976–1984 in 2 beautiful packages (CD with 44-page Booklet & 2XLP Gatefold LP (140gr)with 20-pages LP size Booklet) The Pop Makossa adventure started in 2009, when Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb first travelled to Cameroon to make an initial assessment of the country's musical situation. He returned with enough tracks for an explosive compilation highlighting the period when funk and disco sounds began to infiltrate the Makossa style popular throughout Cameroon.